Toyotas and Chevys more reliable than BMW and Mercedes, J.D. Power finds

Prospective buyers planning to splurge on a luxury car may want to reconsider: Mass-market brands now are more reliable than premium models.

For the first time in its 30-year vehicle-dependability study, J.D. Power found that mainstream brands ranked higher than upscale ones, based on problems per 100 vehicles for three-year-old autos.

Nameplates from companies including Toyota, General Motors and Hyundai had an average of 135 problems, six fewer than for brands such as BMW and Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz.

The shift is a combination of mass-market cars catching up in overall quality and less new technology in these vehicles that can increase the chance of something going wrong, according to Dave Sargent, J.D. Power’s vice president of global automotive.

“Partly, it’s just a lot of hard work and learning, and partly, it’s lower penetration with some of these features,” Sargent said in a phone interview. “There is no inherent reason why a more-expensive car should be better or worse in terms of reliability than a less-expensive car, so my guess is they’ll track each other fairly closely going forward.”

The industry averaged six fewer problems per 100 vehicles compared with a year ago, according to J.D. Power. That was a slower pace than the decline of 14 between 2017 and 2018, with new technologies such as voice recognition and enhanced safety systems contributing to the lag in improvement.

Toyota’s Lexus luxury line topped the list for the eighth consecutive year with 106 problems, followed by Porsche with 108—even though their totals rose from 99 and 100 respectively last year. Toyota-brand vehicles tied for second place with Porsche, and GM’s Chevrolet and Buick brands rounded out the top five.

For the first time in the U.S. study’s history, all German brands ranked above the industry average, which was 136 problems per 100 vehicles. Honda, Ford’s Lincoln and Nissan ranked below the average after beating it last year. Chrysler showed the most improvement, with 65 fewer problems than in 2018.

The J.D. Power report is based on responses from 32,952 original owners of 2016 model-year vehicles. It measures 177 problems in eight major categories experienced in the past 12 months.